Jim Bellows died Friday. He was 86 and had Alzheimer’s disease. From AP: ” Jim Bellows, a famed editor who transformed struggling newspapers in Los Angeles, Washington and New York, nurtured the careers of Tom Wolfe and Jimmy Breslin and helped make “Entertainment Tonight” a TV hit, has died… For two decades beginning in the 1960s, Bellows took big-city newspapers that were fighting losing battles against large-budgeted giants and spiced them up with scrappy reporting and columns that often took jabs at their rivals.”

A longtime Rocky Mountain News reporter James Meadow died Sunday after a serious mountain biking accident. Friends and family have started a Facebook group here. Tributes to Meadow can also be found at “I wany my Rocky,” a blog dedicated to the paper.

In other news, a NYT story this weekend reports that the LA Daily News is going to try an experiment this summer wherein readers get to choose their own news. From FishbowlNY: The plan is to let readers customize their own papers with news stories they like and then print them in their own homes (so sort of like a dead tree RSS feed?).

WaPo’s Marc Fisher says DC is “suddenly hot” in primetime. “But with the election of Barack Obama, the shift of economic power from New York to the District, and the evolution of a voracious celebrity culture to include politicians and even campaign strategists, TV is rediscovering Washington. No longer is the city simply a collection of marble icons to be glommed onto police procedurals and other basic formats of television drama.”

Tell him something good. Mmmhmm. AP’s David Bauder reports NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has received thousands of responses after asking viewers for some good news on his broadcast.

NYT also reports NBC is considering extending Nightly News to an hour long broadcast.

RADIO

How many people actually listen to Rush Limbaugh? “According to what Limbaugh delights in calling “the drive-by media,” the number varies wildly. Is it 30 million (Pat Buchanan on MSNBC), 20 million (Time magazine, ABC News), 19 million (Fox News), 14 million (CNN), or “14.2 million to about 25 million” (The Washington Post)?” Answer from WaPo’s Paul Farhi, maybe. Read more here.

In other Limbaugh news, HuffPost points out on his show Friday, he suggested Sen. Ted Kennedy would not see the health care reform legislaton pass. “Before it’s all over, it’ll be called the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill,” they report Limbaugh said.

ONLINE

President Obama revealed to the NYT in last week’s interview that he doesn’t read FishbowlDC, or more specifically, blogs. From the transcript: Q: “No blogs?” “I rarely read blogs.” More on President Obama’s NYT interview on FBDC later today.

Just when everyone’s moved on to hating Twitter, The Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash wants to remind us, he still hates Facebook, calling the networking site, “dull– mind-numbingly dull.”

Thank goodness for free newspapers at the White House. Washington Whispers tells us before becoming President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel used to swipe newspapers from roommates Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg and his wife Rep. Rosa DeLauro. Emanuel lives in their basement apartment while in DC.

From DCRTV: Weekend news anchor Jennifer Ryan will be leaving Channel 9/WUSA as of this weekend. A source tells us that, by losing Ryan, “the station is breaking up the longest running anchor team with her and Bruce Johnson.” As a budget cutting move, WUSA recently replaced its weekend morning newscasts with infomercials.

From Playbook: Former press secretary to Vice president Cheney Megan Mitchell is now Communications Director for Rep. John Culberson (R-TX). Also moving on, Matt Mackowiak finishes two years as press secretary for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX).